Media & Public Relations

Binghamton University hosts the 33rd annual Poetry and the Children Day

2010-05-11

BINGHAMTON, NY -- More than 400 students from 38 schools and 13 school districts will meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 19, in the Osterhout Concert Theater of the Anderson Center at Binghamton University for the 33rd annual Poetry and the Children Day. After the opening presentation, students will present their poems at 11 a.m. throughout the Fine Arts Building.

The program, which brings students together for a day of poetry readings, was established as a memorial to Robert Pawlikowski. A published poet, creative writing instructor and campus administrative assistant, Pawlikowski drowned in 1975 while on vacation with his family. The event is a tribute to the efforts that Pawlikowski made during his lifetime in nurturing the expressive and intellectual powers of his students as well as those of his own children.

This year’s guest poet is Andrei Guruianu, a Romanian-born writer living in Vestal.He is the author of three previous collections of poetry: And Nothing Was Sacred Anymore (March Street Press, 2009), Front Porch World View (Main Street Rag, 2009), Days When I Saw the Horizon Bleed (FootHills Publishing, 2006); also author of the chapbooks Anamnesis (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2010) and It Was Like That Once (Pudding House, 2008).

A recent graduate of the doctoral program in English at Binghamton University, Guruianu is now an Assistant Professor in English at North Central College in Illinois. In 2009, he worked as guest editor of Yellow Medicine Review and edited the anthology “Twenty Years After the Fall:A Retrospective in Poetry and Prose” (Parlor City Press, 2010).Guruianu is also the founder and executive editor of the literary journal The Broome Review (www.thebroomereview.com) and currently serves as the Broome County Poet Laureate 2009-2010.More of his work can be found at www.andreiguruianu.com.

Partially underwritten by the Oakdale Mall and Susan Clark-Johnson, an anthology is prepared by the Office of the Dean of Harpur College and distributed to teachers and local libraries. Clark-Johnson is a 1967 Binghamton University graduate and former publisher of the Binghamton Evening Press, the predecessor to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin.